acer aspire wont power up no battery charge light have psu one is new voltage checks out ok. had symptoms of loose power dc socket but stripped and checked found ok but all terminals from socket seem to have continuity (short?) and no seperate +or - . Dave

Statistically, I reckon this problem results from a failed charger (transformer) say 66% of the time, a failed power socket say 33% of the time and something else maybe 1% of the time. Could something inside the socket be broken giving rise to a short? You could test this if you could remove the socket from the motherboard - but you would need to be a dab hand with a soldering iron.

Hi, thanx for reply- soldering no real probs, I have ordered a socket and will try the easy bit first! I have 2 psu's one of which is brand new, also the voltage out and current is correct. No sign of a short in the board tracks- usually 19v at 4.5 amps would make a visible mess and smell. Socket does show a short, but this may be something further down the dc bus, perhaps as far as the first semiconductor that happens to be configured to pass the voltage (it may pass others along the way which may block it I assume). All else fails, there seems to be a "dark secret" of common knowledge about what these failures are, in the trade, and are a lucrative relatively simple fix? Nice little earner, methinx. Still....I know my limits and if beyond them, a fair price will be paid for a reliable repair by someone who can. Anyone reading this who can do so is welcome to contact me if they want to. If a commercial repair, I would like a warranty and some customer feedback or references, if available. Thanx y'alllll!

Some laptops are a pig to disassemble and reassemble again. Some manufacturers do not make disassembly instructions available. There are a dozen or so different power sockets in use. All in all I doubt that fixing these problems is much of a nice little earner for anyone! But it is a very common failure mechanism - laptop manufacturers do not make these power sockets robust enough.

Well...I found the stripdown manual on the net easy enough, not too bad to get the machine apart, but remembering the route of wires etc is the key to easy reassembly it seems. It took less than an hour. I got my socket (wrong one!!) so I need to get correct one- supplier is very quick and helpful. When thats replaced, we'll see if it works. If not, over to the pros. Who do earn quite nicely from it, as most folk won't even have a go themselves. What makes ME think, is lots of them can quote a given price for a "motherboard repair" to component level, which, considering the number of, and diversity and availability or otherwise of components, suggests there is a common thread to follow, and they could maybe go right to it. And they don't work for nothing. I don't begrudge anyone a living, just very wary of paying a high price for a simple job. All cases are different though. Maybe someone can suggest a potential issue with these boards? Cheers!

Just read the answers given by Alan B and have to say for an IT Professional he's one MORON having no idea what is he speaking about.That saying I hope david h. fixed his laptop and I'm away elsewhere as I'm looking for Aspire 7736ZG schematic anyways.

I tried to help, which is more than Peter K does. Replacing or re-soldering a laptop power socket is relatively simple if you do one a day but relatively hard (for most people) as a one-off. We never found out if David managed to do his own repair or not.

I don't realise why someone should be called a moron when he was simply stating the obvious.

Strip down instructions are not always available, this failure is very common and is a pain for those who carry out the operation rarely. I consider myself a professional but always send this job out to someone who spends his working life with a soldering iron in one hand.

My advice is not to try to renew power socket to the mother board as I try ed extremely hard job with out manufacturer info the correct socket was faulty. A total waste of time.Has any body managed to renew the socket ? The fault turned out to be short on the mother board but gave the readings of a short at the power socket . All the best Bill